Yesterday it was New Year sparkler January and today it is orange sky May. Tomorrow no doubt will be 2027 with a chance of digital rain.
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Category: Photos
Atmosphere brings distortion but also life
‘Images of the eclipse show a crisp lunar horizon, because the moon has no atmosphere that would distort light.’
Atmosphere brings distortion but it also brings life. The moon may pose beautifully for photos but you wouldn’t want to live there.
So often the very things that bring potential for distortion or confusion or chaos or loss also carry along the things we value most, even life itself.
Passionate faith may lead to a life of unparralled service or unmitigated violence.
The ocean meeting land offers the pleasure of being carried along in majesty but sometimes being crushed and killed.
Love soars in our hearts and makes us feel invincible but can leave us stripped bare and dangerously vulnerable.
We can live to avoid all these paradoxes and be free of distortion – like a crisp lunar landscape black against a raging sun. Many seek to live this way and risk the greatest distortion of all.
Or we can dare a life of atmosphere and its light distorting quality and find strength and insight from a greater light that gives courage and truth enough to live and love well.
Perhaps when we look at one another and our atmosphere-cloaked world we should set aside sharp dividing lines and take greater pleasure in the wildness of us all.
Image Credit: NASA/SDO – the photo was taken by NASA’S Solar Dynamics Observatory on July 26, 2014.
More details here.
Postscript: I am particularly mindful of many people of all persuasions seeking to draw and redraw crisp, clear lines on our planet in places like Ukraine or Gaza or Syria or Iraq or many troubled places in Africa and perhaps even the oceans around Australia. (And I’m a fool if I don’t think I do it too.) Places where lines have never succeeded but the blurriness of atmosphere has allowed communities to coexist in risky but lovely peace. Set down your lunar linemarkers l pray… and breath.
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Job of the week, cleaning five million holes…
Spotted these two high above Broadway, Sydney, on the side of the newest University of Technology Sydney (UTS) building. I was wondering if they were cleaning the holes and if so, they are probably still there… The top end of Broadway now features an interesting array of architecture with this meandering structure alongside the iconic […]
Brought to sight by a flash of light
It’s small in the scheme of things
But significant all the same
Brought to sight by a flash of light
The unseen is suddenly seen
Water surrounds it darkly
Future written in the sky
Brought to sight by a flash of light
Startling momentous life
What is it?
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At six minutes and 14 seconds into the new year…
At six minutes and 14 seconds past midnight on January 1, 2013 I took this photo.
I didn’t know this at the time, but my phone did, on which I captured the image.
At the same moment a person in front raised their hand also to take a photo so that it appears they are balancing an explosion on their fist.
Here we all are, leaning forward toward the new year, counting down the solidity of year with the stuff of split-seconds.
We have so much information at our fingertips without trying, down to the unconscious moment of tapping for a photo… and yet faced with a new year we know nothing at all, not even today, not even tomorrow.
If the psalmist David was among the crowd on this balmy Sydney night, passing through the crowd with reflective gaze, he may have strolled back up the hill in his shorts, thongs and a Tigers t-shirt, typing as he walked:
“The life of mortals is like fireworks,
they flourish like a sparkle in the night.” *
And at the same time, sensing Someone eternal, walking alongside.
* Psalm 103:15-17 – The life of mortals is like grass,
they flourish like a flower of the field;
16 the wind blows over it and it is gone,
and its place remembers it no more.
17 But from everlasting to everlasting
the Lord’s love is with those who fear him,
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Happy New Year from Sydney
Xmas in the sky with baubles
‘Xmas Decor…’ Mmm, yes, how about a billion singing angels or wandering, wondering star or God fleshly veiled…
If we throw away the Way, where will we go?
Please, don’t throw away the Cross. By all means throw me away – my vain words, my frail actions, my petty sacrifices, my faint witness. Walk away from religion and the trappings of institutions; the rules of men and the practise of aggrandisement. Call to account the priestly paedophiles, the pastoral pilferers and the plastic prophets. Reject listless nominalism, […]
Stonehenge rocks
Once in the rain and again in the sunshine, Stonehenge managed to assert its ancient presence on the green Salisbury plains. But there is a greater Rock, eternal rather than just ancient…
Salute to Salisbury
With the tallest steeple in England and its very own copy of the Magna Carta, it’s hard to beat the sublime proportions and prayerful ambience of Salisbury Cathedral.
Eyeful of the Eiffel
Just before the fireworks on Bastille Day 2012…
Paris celebrates Bastille Day 2012: photos
Bastille Day seemed to us Australians something like a mix between Anzac Day and Australia Day with fewer barbecues and more tanks and fighter planes.
There were lots of crowds moving quietly to watch parades, flyovers and fireworks and just as many watching the passing crowds from the forward-facing chairs of cafes.
As we arrived at the fireworks, a short walk from where we are staying, it was somewhat like Sydney’s New Year’s Eve fireworks only the iron of the bridge had morphed into a giant tower.
So conditioned am I by the Sydney event, when the fireworks were under way I kissed my wife and said Happy New Year! Or perhaps that was just an excuse… Enjoy our small photographic selection
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Photo of tonight’s partial lunar eclipse from Sydney
Entree to Transit of Venus: partial lunar eclipse on tonight (June 4)
With all the Tranist of Venus excitement which occurs from about 8am June 6 (and then not again until 2117) there’s been little mention of the partial lunar eclipse occuring tonight.
The moon is passing through the eath’s shadow and will be mot affected at 9.03pm.
It’s a beautiful clear night in Sydney so step outside and see our collective shadow on the moon and pray for this mysterious round ball we call home.
More details here: http://nightskyonline.info/?p=3676
Oh, and the Tranist of Venus is June 5,6 and occurs when Venus crosses the sun.
More details here: http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/transit-of-venus-6-june-2012/
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Sunrise over Sydney
Through a dirty window, a sky cleansed of city smog by days of rain produced an inner city sunrise that took me emotionally to many beachside moments where I have enjoyed the same experience. Reminded me that peace, rest and beauty are as much an inner state as they outer phenomena.
And then there was a flag… followed by a polite pirate
We wonder if Sydney’s inner west resident flag-marcher will be out and about today after Australia’s great win in the second test in South Africa. He was first spotted on the eve of one of Australia’s Rugby World Cup games, spreading national fervour around the intersection of Crystal St and Parrmatta Rd. When photographed, he […]
Two icons embrace
Sydney’s Jacarandas are giving a mauving display this spring as are the different varieties of flame trees. These two took a moment for a fond embrace in Glebe this week. Purple, the colour of divinity, wrapped around a heart of fire…
Apocalypse sky
The sky over Sydney was like a dirty brush dragged over steel with a sullen sun and sudden (suspicious) moon and the hint of disaster carried on strengthening winds and sirens. A sky from The Road or some grim otherness but in the long run, not much more than looking west at peak hour…
Lockyer’s last Origin moments captured on Paper Camera
Darren Lockyer played his last game of State of Origin rugby league as part of Queensland’s 34-24 defeat of NSW in front of a record-equaling crowd at Suncorp Stadium tonight.
The Australian, Queensland and Brisbane captain said before the game he wanted to finish with no regrets and he accomplished this with another superb performance personally and by his team.
There are few players who have carried themselves with as much control, dignity, fairness and talent as Darren Lockyer and so although I’m a NSW supporter, I could not for a moment begrudge his moment of well-deserved glory.
Tonight I also downloaded a new iPhone app called Paper Camera which has just been released and applies some funky and creative filters to your photos.
I was able to record (above) Lockyer’s lap of honour with some special effects. Enjoy.
And if we could all follow Lockyer’s ambition – to finish with no regrets – our lives would certainly be freer and lighter.
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Chinese officials float over road and around the world
Utterance more often than not tackles relatively serious and reflective issues but can’t resist the hilarity that has surrounded China’s three levitating officials inspecting roads in Huili, south-west China.
The original badly doctored photo has spawned a creative range of imitations and even prompted a re-issuing of the original photos.
The three men will probably remain nameless forever which is a shame, I hope they can have a good laugh with the rest of us. And let’s hope the person who posed them floating over the new road is not locked up! Enjoy…
